Typhoon Fury

11

Beth Anders traveled around the world for her job and she knew all the scams. When a young Bangkok street urchin approached her to beg for money, she politely but firmly declined, knowing he would just take her charity straight back to some scuzzball who took advantage of these poor kids. As she walked down the busy road in the Patpong District, she kept her bag in front of her and her hand on the clasp.

At night, the shops would be lit up in flashy neon, and girls would be standing outside of the clubs enthusiastically advertising their wares. But in the late afternoon, the scene just seemed sad. In addition to many umbrella-topped food carts, street vendors hawked all kinds of magazines and items that Beth didn’t even want to look at. Pharmacies sold nearly any prescription drug you could ask for at a fraction of the cost in other countries. Valium and psychedelic mushrooms were particular favorites. For those who preferred liquid anesthetics, there were bars everywhere. Drunken tourists were getting a head start on their nightlife, weaving their way among the motorcycles and three-wheeled tuk-tuks that crowded the road.

Although Beth knew she was probably safe at this time of day, she was glad she wasn’t alone. Raven Malloy walked next to her, constantly scanning her surroundings. Unlike Beth, she carried no purse, keeping her hands free at her sides.

“Of course, they had to pick one of the sleaziest parts of Bangkok for the meeting,” Beth said.

“They’re drug dealers,” Raven replied in a clipped contralto. “What did you expect?”

“Originally, they wanted this meeting at two in the morning, but I told them that wasn’t going to happen.”

“Smart, but this is still a big risk. If they figure out what you’re doing, they’ll kill us both.”

“That’s why I brought an Army Ranger with me. You’re there to watch my back.”

Raven kept scanning. “I was a military police investigator. I only applied to Ranger School. They didn’t start allowing women in until after I had left the Army.”

“I’m sure you would have passed.”

Raven shrugged. “We’ll never know. Maybe they did me a favor. This job pays a lot more.”

“Your fee is definitely worth it if we’re successful.”

A white man in his thirties, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, staggering in their direction, caught sight of Raven and made a beeline for her. Raven didn’t stop walking, so Beth didn’t, either. The man, who was at least six inches taller and forty pounds heavier than either of them, lurched around to walk next to Raven, matching her pace despite his condition. Beth could smell the gin on his breath from three feet away.

“Hey, baby,” he said to Raven, completely ignoring Beth. “I’ve been looking for a girl like you all my life.”

“To kick you in the crotch?” Raven asked without missing a beat.

The guy’s eyes went wide. “Hey, you’re American like me! I’m from Florida. Name’s Fred. What’s yours?”

“I guess you were too plastered to hear the crotch-kicking part. You think you’re too drunk to feel it?”

“Now, is that any way to talk to a fellow countryman? I just think you’re pretty, that’s all. What’s wrong with telling a pretty girl that?”

“For one, I don’t care what you think. And, two, that’s how I always talk to idiots.”

He finally noticed Beth next to Raven and said, “Wow, you’re smoking hot, too. If she’s not in the mood, maybe you and I can have some fun.”

“Listen, Fred,” Raven said. “I’m giving you one more chance. If you don’t leave us alone, my knee and your privates are going to become mortal enemies.”

“Stop being such a buzzkill,” he said. “You know you want to party, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

And then Fred made the mistake of putting his hand on Raven’s shoulder.

With lightning speed, she grabbed his hand and bent it backward. He let out a yelp as he tried to keep her from breaking his wrist. True to her word, Raven launched her knee into his crotch in a vicious strike.

The breath whooshed out of Fred in an audible gasp, and he collapsed to his knees before keeling over into the fetal position and cradling his groin with a whimper.

Raven continued on, barely breaking stride, as if she had just plucked an annoying pebble from her shoe.

Beth would be surprised if that was her guardian’s first unsolicited proposition. With long jet-black hair tied in a ponytail, high cheekbones, and smooth caramel skin that Beth would have killed for, Raven was a stunner, even without makeup. Her snug T-shirt showed off her buff biceps and shoulders but was loose-fitting around the waist, and her jeans followed the curves of her perfectly shaped legs. Just listening to a recitation of her grueling training regimen made Beth break out in a sweat.

Looking at her again, Beth could understand why Fred had assumed Raven was Thai. She had a look that was hard to pin down. Depending on the angle, she could be Arab, Indian, Hispanic, or Polynesian, but she was actually Native American, a mix of Cherokee and Sioux. Her Irish surname came from her adoptive parents, who had both been in the military. Her features meant she could blend in with dozens of different cultures around the world.

Beth, on the other hand, was so Caucasian she could have appeared in a commercial for Scottish tourism. She was tall like Raven but had a flaming red mane of wavy hair, and her skin was alabaster white. She was in good shape, jogging whenever she could, but she was envious of Raven’s athletic physique. She resolved to hit the hotel gym more often.

Beth could still hear Fred groaning behind them when they reached a club called Nightcrawlers. She stopped and looked up at the sign, which was outlined in neon light beside the image of an impossibly thin woman.

“Remember,” Raven said, “if this goes bad, stick close to me.” She had explained the layout of the building to Beth, including all of the exits, after scouting the club the night before. Raven said she always liked to know how to get out of a building if she had to.

“I’ve dealt with guys like this before,” Beth said. “All they care about is the money.” She didn’t add that these guys were tougher than most, but it apparently came out in her voice.

“We can still call it off,” Raven said. “We could head back to the car and give Interpol a call.”

Beth may have been apprehensive, but she was also determined.

“And give up a chance for a five-million-dollar payday, not to mention solving the greatest art heist in history?” she said. “No way.”

They entered the club and were met by a huge bouncer.

“Club is closed until nine,” he said in English.

“I’m Beth Anders,” she said. “Udom is expecting us.”

The bouncer nodded and pointed to a flight of stairs at the back.

Udom was the first name of the Thai drug dealer that had set up the meeting. He didn’t give a last name, not that Beth had asked. Surnames had been required in Thailand after a law was passed in 1913, but many Thai still preferred to use just their first names when they could.

They went upstairs and were met by another guard, this one even bigger than the one at the front door. She gave her name again and was allowed in.

A spindly man in his forties, Udom was leaning against a desk. She hadn’t thought a drug pusher would use the crystal meth and ecstasy that he dealt to the tourists on their hedonistic holidays, but now, seeing his rail-thin frame and sunken eyes, she wasn’t so sure.

There were a dozen men in the expansive office. Half of them looked Thai, but the other half, who all looked jacked on steroids, were from some other South Asian country she couldn’t put her finger on.

“Come in, Dr. Anders,” Udom said with a smile. “Who is this lovely lady with you?”

“This is my assistant, Raven.”

“All right. Then let’s get down to business.”

Beth’s heart pounded when she saw what he was casually twirling in his hands. It was a ten-inch-high bronze eagle finial that fit on the top of a flagpole.

The finial she was looking at had been sought after for over twenty-five years, and this drug dealer was playing with it like it was a cheap paperweight.

Beth’s expertise was art history. She’d earned a Ph.D. in the subject from Cornell before attempting to secure a position in academia. But that plan was derailed when she was hired by an insurance firm to appraise a Picasso in a billionaire’s penthouse in New York City. She discovered that it had been replaced with an excellent forgery, and her help in the investigation led to the recovery of the ten-million-dollar painting.

When she found she had a talent for investigation, her unique skill set put her in high demand in the art world. Not only did she save insurance companies millions by recovering artwork, her knack for identifying suspected forgeries allowed her to supplement her income by authenticating art for prospective buyers and auction houses.

Beth had built up a reputation in the art black market as well. After being recommended to Udom by someone else she’d worked with, he had asked her to authenticate and appraise a very valuable painting, one she would immediately recognize. She didn’t work with just anyone, so to prove his seriousness, he had sent her a photo of the eagle finial next to a recent newspaper as a calling card.

“May I,” she said, reverently moving toward him with her hands outstretched.

He held it out for her. “That’s what you’re here for.”

She took it and suppressed a shiver of excitement at holding what was an almost mythical object in the art world.

In 1990, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston was robbed in the largest private property theft in history. Thirteen works of art were stolen, including paintings by the masters Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas, and Manet. All told, the paintings were valued at five hundred million dollars, and a five-million-dollar reward for their return remained unclaimed. The eagle finial alone, which had topped a pole carrying a Napoleonic flag, would fetch a reward of a hundred thousand dollars.

For decades, it was feared that the artwork had been destroyed by the thieves, and many had given up hope of ever recovering the paintings, which still had their spots waiting for them in the museum. But the finial was proof that at least some of the art still existed.

It was breathtaking to hold the eagle Beth had memorized from photographs. The detail in person was even more striking, but she had to remember she had larger goals than this one object.

She opened her purse to take out a jeweler’s loupe to examine the finial up close, but she already had no doubt it was authentic. Her real goal was to attach the microtransmitter in her palm so they could track it back to the paintings.

It had been rumored for years that drug smugglers used valuable paintings as collateral in their trades. A painting was much easier to roll up and transport on an international flight than millions of dollars in cash, so the art supposedly made its way back and forth between the gangs as a sort of currency. The only problem was verifying that the art was real so that they wouldn’t be left holding a worthless counterfeit. The bronze finial was obviously being used to verify the provenance of the paintings to be used in the trade.

Beth had considered bringing Interpol in to carry out a raid, but she was afraid they’d lose their one shot at finding the paintings. So she’d come up with the plan to find the whole lot at once.

The transmitter was smaller than the tiny SIM card in her phone. It was flexible, almost transparent, and had a strong adhesive backing on it. All she had to do was place it inside the finial’s flagpole sleeve without anyone noticing, and then they could be on their way. Once the finial went back with its owner to its original storage location, she’d bring in Interpol for a raid to recover the paintings and her reward.

“Well?” Udom asked.

With her thumb, Beth pressed the transmitter into the sleeve of the finial, when she saw the men’s attention trained on Raven. It would go undetected unless someone were looking for it.

She looked up at Udom. “I can verify conclusively that this is the object stolen from the Gardner Museum.”

Udom looked at one of the non-Thais and smiled. “It looks like we’re in business, then, Tagaan.”

Tagaan, who must have been the leader of the other group, nodded and stepped forward holding a plastic tube. He removed a rolled-up canvas from it and unfurled it on the desk.

“Tell us how much this is worth,” he demanded.

Beth couldn’t keep her jaw from dropping at the sight of it. Tagaan had casually spread out a ten-by-thirteen-inch masterpiece called Chez Tortoni by the impressionist Édouard Manet.

“Yes, tell us,” Udom said, and, with a nod to his men, they all drew pistols and aimed them at the visitors. “You said you had a test to verify it’s real. Prove to me that we aren’t being cheated with a counterfeit.”

Beth looked to Raven, who seemed as calm as ever, but it was clear the mental gears were working furiously behind her eyes. She gave Beth a reassuring glance, which helped ease her back from the edge of panic to mere terror.

As Beth walked over to the Manet, she understood how much was riding on her appraisal. If the small painting lying on the drug dealer’s desk was a genuine Manet, it was valued at twenty million dollars. If it wasn’t, they were all dead.